"Halliwell's Harvest" [A Further Choice of Entertainment Movies [from the Golden Age] By Leslie Halliwell Pub.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986 Book Excert: Pages, 141 - 144

Trail of the Fox

THE MARK OF ZORRO

Oppressors in California are harassed by a masked avenger.

I don't know much, if anything, about Johnston McCulley, who wrote a comic strip called The Curse of Capistrano on which the Zorro legend is based, but I wager he'd admit to having read about Robin Hood and the Scarlet Pimpernel, on whose exploits his Zorro is firmly founded. He can hardly be accused of stealing from Batman or Superman or the Incredible Hulk - quite the reverse but all these heroes are brothers under the skin, law-abiders stirred by Injustice to adopt an alias and set things straight by means of violent action. The 1922 Version of Zorro was chosen by Douglas Fairbanks as a vehicle for him to do his Spring-Heeled Jack routine, and though he performs some still?astonishing leaps the film itself is muddy in development and hard to tolerate. Not so the 1940 remake, which, though it forgets to mention that zorro is Spanish for fox, is blessed by the attentions of several great professionals from the golden age of Hollywood, which of course was, paradoxically, the age of black-and-white photography Arthur Miller was behind the camera in this case, achieving limpid compositions of sunlight and shadow. Alfred Newman wrote a thumping Korngold-like score. Richard Day had a hand in the sets. And the piece was directed by Rouben Mamoulian, whose sensitive eye is evident in every frame of his reconstruction of a sleepy California of long ago: as somebody comments, a land of sleeping peons, gentle missions and everlasting boredom'. Certainly Los Angeles is unrecognizable, being presented as a few haciendas grouped round a dusty square.

By courtesy of a glass shot or two, the story starts in Spain:

MADRID: when the Spanish Empire encompassed the globe, and young Spanish blades were taught the fine and fashionable art of killing . . .

In Hollywood's lavish tradition of spending much on a small effect, we are shown a field full of fifty duelling cadets, of whom one is our hero, The etforts to sketch in a romantic image for him are slightly risible now:

You have an affair of the court, my lord?

- No, of the heart. Have you forgotten that you cross swords with Lieutenant Cortez at three o'clock?

- Santa Maria, it had slipped my mind!

Don Diego de Vega is, to be truthful, somewhat unsatisfactorily played by a chubby young Tyrone Power, who simply can't manage without unseemly grimaces the element of self-mockery which came so easily to Errol Flynn over at. Warners. But the script wafts him along. His father orders him back to California, so he lodges his sword in the ceiling of the cadet school, not knowing how much he is going to need it. The moment he arrives on American soil, rather overdressed for the journey, he announces himself at an inn as the son of the Alcalde, and finds that all the locals walk out with a good deal of silent rhubarbing. The truth is that his noble father is no longer the Alcalde, having been deposed by a corrupt government. In his place is a conniving puppet, Don Luis Quintero U. Edward Bromberg), backed by a military adjutant, Captain Esteban Pasquale (Basil Rathbone). These smirking villains are clearly modelled on Robin Hood's Prince John and Sir Guy of Gisborne, so it is no surprise to find that in the latter case the same actor has been employed, though in this film he has to tart up his underwritten role by making dangerous thrusts and parries as he indulges in small talk: 'most men have objects they play with. Churchmen have their beads; I toy with a sword.' As Don Diego says, when introduced to the upstart in a scene of cold politeness: 'How can I refuse anything to a man with a sword in his hand?' Answering a question with a question, Pasquale inquires: 'You fancy the weapon?'

Noting the undertones of relationship - Quintero is jealous of his interest in Pasquale, she is jealous of her niece's beauty - Don Diego decides that the safest cover for him is to assume the guise of a for). I love the shimmer of satins and silks, the matching of scents and lotions. As to ornaments and jewels . . .' Thus he earns the contempt of all concerned, cluding his own father and the old priest, played by Eugene Pallette in yet other reprise from Robin Hood. 'What we need in California now,' says the friar guilelessly, 'is an angel with a flaming sword!' Well, of course they get Quintero may post up as many notices on the following lines as he wishes:

RAW GRAPES will no longer be accepted in payment of taxes in this bottle in five. of the finished wine must be handed by district. One October 31st.

It is to no avail for a masked figure on horseback comes riding pell mell into own and rips down the notices with his sword, inscribing instead a fancy Z and posting a notice of his own:

Let it be known that Luis Quintero is a thief and an enemy of the people Zorro. and cannot escape my vengeance!

Zorro also does a little robbing of the rich to give back to the poor, but on the hole it is hard to see why his rather modest exploits should strike such terror to the hearts of a military garrison. They don't even inspire his own father, who is a devotee of law and order even if the law is corrupt. But for the picture's purposes the masked rider thinks he can scare Quintero into resigning, which will apparently restore normalcy to California. So be it.

Zorro does a lot of bounding about, and when cornered on one occasion he even forces his horse to leap off a bridge into the foaming river below, but as a ,tactician he doesn't seem all that clever. Sometimes he wears an eye-mask, sometimes one which covers the lower part of his face, but either way he is pretty recognizable as Tyrone Power, though not to anybody in the picture. '.Certainly not to Linda Darnell, who has the boring task of playing the heroine; he courts her obliquely while disguised as a friar. Her confusion flushes her cheeks even more prettily, so that Aunt Inez (Gale Sondergaard, playing Quintero's flirtatious wife) suspects that the child is getting something her aunt 'isn't, which makes the lady even more of a martinet. 'Keep it cool, my girl,' ,she snarls, 'or I'll whisk you into a convent'; then, turning to flutter her .eyelashes at Pasquale, she murmurs coyly: 'Let's fly, I'm dying for a canter!'

As Pasquale, poor Rathbone, still looking for something to do, bad-temperedly attacks a melon at dinner. Diego comments: 'You seem to find that poor fruit an enemy.' 'No, sir,' replies Pasquale, 'a rival!' Mr. Rathbone looks so resplendent in this film that some of us may be sorry that he is not given dialogue enabling him to polish off Zorro in double-quick time. Instead, he as to accept the foppish pretence, and nod civilly at a man who offers as an apology for lateness the fact that his bath was tepid. 'His bath was tepid!' Pasquale snorts sotto voce. 'Poor Lolita, I'm afraid her wedded life will be the same.'

Diego's methods are so amateur that even these blinkered villains recognize him at last, though one at a time. Pasquale is rash enough to challenge him to Diego in response seems to miss entirely, but is able to lift up half the candle by its wick . The duel itself is moderately exciting, with the usual pauses for exchanges between clenched teeth: that famous duel, the one in which Pasquale with his sword slices the top Orr off candle; Ah, the captain's blade is not so firm! - Firm enough to run you through!

We are surprised when Pasquale is suddenly dispatched, and even more so when the stupid Quintero turns into Sherlock Holmes and realizes, one, that Diego must have followed Zorro's known route through the cellars, and two, that he still has cellar mud on his boots. 'Third, you handle your sword like a devil from hell!' Such matters should have been left to Rathbone, who is unavoidably absent from the final action, when the caballeros get their courage back and storm the barricades. It's an adequate finale, but it relies rather too heavily on the corpulent friar hitting his enemies on the head and muttering 'God forgive me' to each. Like many another star vehicle The Mark of Zorro is good to look at but doesn't bear too much examination.

The Mark of Zorro. US 1940; black and white; 93 minutes. Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for Twentieth Century-Fox. Written by John Tainton Foote, Bess Meredyth and Garrett Fort, from the story 'The Curse of Capistrano' by Johnston McCulley. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Photographed by Arthur Miller. Music by Alfred Newman. With Tyrone Power as Don Diego de Vega; Basil Rathbone as Captain Esteban Pasquale; J. Edward Bromberg as Don Luis Quintero; Linda Darnell as Lolita Quintero; Gale Sondergaard as Inez Quintero; Eugene Pallette as Fray Felipe; Montagu Love as Don Alejandro Vega; Janet Beecher as Dona Isabella Vega.